The makers of the Will Ferrell movie "Semi-Pro" will find out next week.

Between April 29 and May 3, director Kent Alterman and his cast and crew - including stars Ferrell and Woody Harrelson - will move back and forth between Flint and Detroit for outdoor shots and other exteriors.

After 50 days of filming interiors - most of the movie - in Los Angeles since mid-February, production will be completed in the real-life home of the film's fictional Flint professional basketball team.

"We're excited to be wrapping up the picture out there," Alterman said Friday from Los Angeles. "We really want it to feel like Flint."

In the film, Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, the owner, head coach and sometime player for the Flint Tropics, a struggling team in the outlaw American Basketball Association. Through on-court talent and off-court ballyhoo, Moon attempts to convince the powerful National Basketball Association to include the Tropics in an impending merger with the ABA.

In recent days, the filmmakers have been ironing out locations logistics in Flint and hiring local extras. As many as 500 extras may be hired for the Michigan scenes, said Wendy Washbrook, extras casting director.

At a Detroit-area hotel, Washbrook and her staff have been fitting extras for '70s-style clothing and hair. "We're looking for a variety of people," said Washbrook, who will bring in more extras this week.

Among those called for extras work is Thomas Radosevich of Flushing, who was asked to bring his 1972 Buick LeSabre convertible with him next week.

Radosevich learned about the extras casting in a Flint Journal story. "I hadn't heard anything for a while," he said Saturday, "but yesterday I got a call saying they wanted me and my car for all five days of shooting, so I went down to be fitted for clothing and they told me I'll be driving my car for the movie."

In the places the extras will populate, "now it's time to establish Flint," said the film's locations manager, Gerard Averill. "In 1976, Flint was bustling."

Meaning that locations will be dressed up - spruced up, if needed, with new lighting and glass as well as the kind of crowd traffic not typically seen downtown and elsewhere these days.

"We want to make every shot look lively," Averill said.

Among the locations targeted for "Semi-Pro" is the old Carriage Town Inn, which will be renamed The Kremlin for use as a bar owned by Moon. Outdoor shots of the Torch Bar and the Capitol Theatre are to appear in shots of crowd celebrations after a crucial victory by the Tropics, Averill said.

Ron Sims, owner of the Torch, said the bar's vintage look attracted the filmmakers.

"They said it was one of the few places downtown that was also here in the '70s," Sims said. "We did some research and found that the signage here is pretty close to the way it was then."

The filmmakers also plan to shoot at the Top Hat Car Wash, Tom Z's Original Coney Island - and in front of The Flint Journal, for a "walking-by" shot, Averill said. The filmmakers even plan to re-create snow for a winter shot of the Capitol Theatre marquee.

Exteriors of the "Flint Fairgrounds Coliseum," the fictional home of the Tropics, will be shot in Detroit.

"When we first came to Michigan ... we scouted five or six cities for Flint - and Flint," he said. "And we realized, Flint looks great. The real thing is good enough."

"Semi-Pro" is a likely 2008 release for New Line Cinema, but the drumbeat of publicity already has begun. The film will get a prominent mention in Sports Illustrated, perhaps as soon as this week's upcoming issue, Alterman said.

Alterman, a former New Line executive in his first film behind the camera, said "Semi-Pro" has come in on time and on budget. (Shooting began in mid-February; Alterman did not give a production cost figure.)

"We've tried to be responsible, and that's been a function of the people who have planned our production schedule to the actors being on top of their games," he said. "We expect the same in Michigan."